Had a chat with an old barber at a shop in Detroit last week that made me rethink how I handle clipper maintenance

This guy named Curtis, been cutting hair for 40 years, told me I was overcleaning my clippers with alcohol. Said it dries out the blades faster and makes them dull within 3 months instead of 6. He showed me his method using just a little clipper oil and a soft brush after every cut. Never had a blade issue in all his years. I been doing the alcohol soak thing since barber school and now I'm wondering if my teachers had it wrong. Anyone else hear this or got a different take on blade care?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_drew14d ago

...and that reminds me, my buddy Mike who cuts hair over in Royal Oak had the same experience. He was religious about wiping his clippers down with alcohol after every single haircut too. After about four months his blades started chewing up people's hair something awful. He finally switched to just oiling them lightly and using that brush method, and he said his last set of blades lasted almost a year. I think there's something to what Curtis told you. Maybe the old school guys know a thing or two that got lost somewhere along the way.

nelson.vera14d ago

Heard a barber supply guy say the same thing as @the_drew's buddy about alcohol wrecking blades over time.

kim.nina12d ago

I saw a YouTube video a few months ago from this old school barber in Chicago, he had like 30 years experience, and he said the exact same thing about alcohol drying out the metal and making it brittle over time. He showed a pair of blades he'd cleaned with alcohol for a year versus one he just oiled and brushed, and the alcohol ones had visible pitting and rust spots near the pivot point. It kind of blew my mind because I always thought you needed alcohol to sanitize everything, but he argued that the heat from cutting and the oil actually kills most bacteria anyway. I've been trying the brush-only method for a few weeks on my own clippers and I swear I can hear a difference in how smooth they run, less of that grinding sound. So Curtis is probably onto something, the trade secret might just be that less is more when it comes to chemicals on your blades.